


I'd Give Up Forever To Touch You

by ElsaFH (Elsa0806)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, AtsuHina Exchange, Demon Miya Atsumu, Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Hinata Shouyou, God Hinata Shouyou, Human Miya Atsumu, Hurt/Comfort, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Pining Hinata Shouyou, Pining Miya Atsumu, Reincarnation, Shinto, song-fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:35:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26326489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsa0806/pseuds/ElsaFH
Summary: The god of life is whimsical, childish, anddangerous.And throughout three lives, Atsumu has fallen in love with them all the same.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Miya Atsumu
Comments: 28
Kudos: 82
Collections: AtsuHina Exchange





	1. The fox and the jackal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beeethle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beeethle/gifts).



> Hello and welcome to my AtsuHina Exchange piece!
> 
> Check the final notes for vocabulary!

There’s an animal that looks like a mix between a wolf and a fox sleeping peacefully on a fallen tree, its paws hanging front and back of the half-rotten trunk that’s been sitting there for more than Atsumu can really tell— or care. The image wouldn’t really bother him, let alone _worry_ him if this wasn’t a creature he’d never seen in his centuries of life. It also wouldn’t worry him if this creature didn’t look like the last thing a demon wants to find in their territory: a god.

“’m not one to hate people just ‘cause… but I don’t really enjoy the idea of another carnivore strollin’ through my territory, y’know?”

The creature opens its eyes and raises them from a small pile of leaves a few metres away from it, and when they fall on Atsumu’s frame he feels something akin to a shiver go down his spine. They’re a deep, bloody orange and they seem to glow amidst the soft darkness of the deepest parts of the forest. They seem uninterested, too, which makes him feel _offended_ — something he’ll never admit out loud. He shouldn’t feel that way and he knows it; an uninterested god in the presence of a demon is the best thing said demon could ask for.

The creature scrunches its snout, lips retracting slightly to reveal long, sharp fangs that look very much alike Atsumu’s own. His nine tails tense behind his back, the fur bristling, and his fox ears flatten against his skull. The instinctive reaction that flourishes in his chest is almost uncontainable but Atsumu manages somehow; this is an uninterested god, he repeats himself. _Let’s keep it that way_.

“You made me lose focus,” the creature complains. Its voice surprises Atsumu— he understands the animals that roam the forests. He’s able to identify their desires and necessities. But they do not communicate through human words or with a human voice. “I was so close to cracking it…”

“Crackin’ _what_?” Atsumu hisses, uncomfortable. This is his and his twin’s forest; no other _strange_ creature is allowed here, let alone a god. Gods don’t set foot on earth— they’re too busy having a stick up their asses to care about the world they created all that time ago. The presence of the weird animal in front of him, who also speaks with human words and with a human voice, feels like an invasion. His fingers twitch around the gunsen. It feels like an enemy. No, scratch that, _this is_ an enemy. “The meanin’ of life?”

The sarcasm in his voice is absolutely unnecessary but he’s gone centuries without really caring about which part of his words or voice is really necessary. Life, in reality, gets boring after living for so long and he’s too done with everything to put some mind into it at this point.

What he does mind, thank you very much, is to keep his and Osamu’s territory as safe as possible. He might be an asshole —Osamu’s words, not his— but he cares deeply about their forest and all the animals that live in it. They’re his and his brother’s responsibility, whether they like it or not, and Atsumu takes his responsibility more seriously than people expect. Meaning he _does not_ feel comfortable with something that looks like a god stepping inside fox territory.

The creature lets out an amused giggle that sounds too much like a children’s for Atsumu’s liking. Its orange eyes roam Atsumu’s frame and seem to bore holes into his skull, and he can’t help but retract his lips to show his fangs.

“The meaning of life,” the creature repeats before making a little sound of effort. It wriggles its body until its front paws touch the leave-covered ground in front of it and wriggles a bit more until it’s finally standing on all fours. “I’ve never stopped to think about such a thing.”

Atsumu clicks his tongue.

“Too trivial for ya?”

His hostility is as necessary as his sarcasm but he’s way past caring for that kind of thing. This creature is invading and therefore it does not deserve any sort of respect coming from Atsumu. He’s been protecting this forest, alongside his brother, for more centuries than the ones he can count; a bit of hostility won’t hurt if that means he keeps his territory safe from strangers that tend to hold a grudge against his kind.

“Nope,” the creature answers, popping the p. It sits on its haunches, moving its tail until it’s surrounding its front paws. It looks almost as fluffy as a fox’s and Atsumu has to contain the urge to ruffle his own fur in annoyance. “I don’t need to find a meaning for myself. I know exactly what I mean.”

Atsumu blinks in confusion. This animal speaks with human words and a human voice. This animal is a canid Atsumu had never seen before— something that looks like the mix of a fox and a wolf. This creature’s eyes make him feel observed, analysed, like only Osamu’s can. The presence coming from it is almost overwhelming and throughout all the centuries he’s been alive, he can’t say he remembers having found something like this. It’s only logical after all; this is the first time he stands in the presence of something that’s most certainly a god.

“I’d advice ya to elaborate. Quickly.”

It’s the creature’s turn to blink in confusion.

“Am I doing something wrong?” it asks. It seems genuinely aggravated as if it had never wanted to make Atsumu feel on edge, but he still feels uncomfortable with its presence. Big, orange eyes that seem to glimmer in the darkness of this part of the forest, look at him intently.

“Who’re ya?”

“You wanna know my name?”

“And yer intentions here.”

The creature blinks again.

“My name’s Hinata Shouyou,” it says. It has a human name, too, and Atsumu trusts it less and less with every second passing. Humans are the things he hates the most, even more than gods; they only consume whatever they touch and never give back. Destruction follows humanity’s lead and Atsumu wants nothing to do with whatever bears the name and the language of one. “I’m the god of life.”

“Prove it. Prove that yer a god.”

The defiance in Atsumu’s voice seems to spark something within the creature’s eyes. Orange irises fix on Atsumu without blinking while it stands straight on all fours, taking one short step to the front as if trying to intimidate him. Atsumu had never seen such a challenge shining in the eyes of someone that wasn’t his brother.

“You,” the creature starts, stretching its back. Its fur is as black as the dead of the night and there’re marks like vines alongside its ribcage of a deep blood orange, like its eyes. It’s a beautiful creature, Atsumu needs to admit that. “I like you.”

The creature growls softly. It seems like it found an itch it cannot scratch and while it stretches its back until Atsumu hears the vertebrae popping, a golden light covers its body like fingers stretching towards the sun. It makes Atsumu think of dust moving in and out of a light ray, sinuous like the silk those humans would kill for; it seems to swirl like clouds around the summit of a mountain and it fills the deepest part of the forest, always untouched by the sun, with the purest light he’s ever seen in his centuries of life.

What emerges from the light isn’t a strange creature he’s never seen before, however. What emerges from the light has the shape, the colour, and the frame of a human that just came off age. The person in front of him is short and thin, almost fragile amidst the darkness of this part of the forest, that one that the light is never supposed to touch but seems to have been illuminated by the sun itself. Their orange hair is wild and curly, looking like a halo around a pale face that’s linked to a thin, pale neck.

This person’s skin looks like ivory, Atsumu thinks, white and creamy. The light orange overshirt seems to be a few sizes too big for them; Atsumu can see part of the ribs through the holes where the sleeves are supposed to be. The neckline where the two halves of the overshirt cross goes low on their chest and Atsumu doesn’t miss the detail of the right side being crossed over the left in a clear reference to the human’s traditions of the kimono usage. This kid seems to think the entire situation is a joke; they introduce themselves as the god of life but wear the overshirt in a clear reference to the kimono tradition that dictates the right side goes over the left only for the dead. What’s with them?

A red sash tightens the overshirt around their waist, blurring the end of it and the beginning of the tightest pair of black short pants Atsumu has ever seen. Their clothes seem to have been made for _fleeing_ ; the long, black bands around their arms seem to be designed to protect them while they’re running through the forest, as well as the bands that surround their calves and tighten around the ankle, leaving the heel and the toes naked.

Their body is slim and small; they’re probably thirty centimetres shorter than Atsumu. He can’t see any muscle moving underneath the ivory skin his eyes can reach, and he wonders momentarily how this person stands in front of him when they look this weak.

Something golden catches Atsumu’s attention and his eyes fix on the swirling lines that fall down their arms; golden vines unravel across the skin of their naked shoulders, stretching over their forearms, disappearing underneath the bands around their arms, and reappearing once again on the back of their hands.

Atsumu’s eyes fall to their feet and it’s only then that he notices the climbing plants growing rapidly, surrounding their ankles and their calves without tightening. Small white beads hang from the ends of the stems and they flourish in between one intake of air and the other.

“Well,” they begin, crossing their arms over their chest. They raise their orange eyebrows until there’re deep wrinkles sinking into the alabaster of their forehead. Their eyes are amber now, contrary to the blood orange of the animal they were before. “I already introduced myself. What’s _your_ name?”

Atsumu still doesn’t believe this person is the god of life albeit having the evidence slapping him in the face. He’s absolutely sure no creature other than the god of life itself could make plants grow underneath their naked feet without really meaning to. They aren’t even looking.

“Atsumu. My name’s Atsumu,” he introduces himself, reluctantly. The lips of the person in front of him twitch in amusement. “’M the guardian of this forest.”

Amber eyes light up as if they’d heard the best news in the world. The change in their expression seems to go from heaven to hell in the blink of an eye and Atsumu is left dumbfounded when they move forwards with climbing plants growing from the soil their ankles and toes touch, the stems wrapping around their legs and letting them go without snapping in the process. Pale fingers reach out and grab the hem of his kimono, pulling at the golden haori as a child would.

“That means you can show me around, Atsumu-san!” they chirp, smiling broadly. Atsumu’s yellow eyes follow the motion of the corners of their mouth while they curl up in the most beautiful, blinding smile he’s ever seen. “I want to know everything!”

“Yer the god of life, arentcha?” he huffs out, averting his gaze. They stop pulling at his haori for a second as if surprised of the vicious sarcasm in his voice. “I thought ya were supposed to know _everythin´_ ‘bout earth.”

The pulling resumes.

“It’s been millennia since I created all of this!” they whine. They pull at his haori a little harder, enough to make him stumble forward and into the other’s personal space. Small hands, smaller than his and definitely more graceful than his press against his chest to stop his falling. “I’m curious!”

“And ya want _me_ to be yer guide?”

“You wouldn’t want me doing _unwanted_ things around your forest, now would you?”

Atsumu presses his lips into a thin line. They’re kinda right: he definitely doesn’t want the god of life going rampage through his forest. It’s a bad idea— no one knows what they can come up with, and Atsumu is certainly not in the mood to deal with a creature he’s never seen before.

He’s already dealing with Hinata Shouyou, the god of life, who speaks and looks like a human, and who also bears the name of a human.

“ _Fine_ ,” he hisses, defeated.

Shouyou’s smile lights up the darkest part of the forest and Atsumu has the burning need of putting his hand in front of his eyes to stop them from going blind.

* * *

Atsumu lies back against the oldest and biggest tree in the forest. The humans from the valley down the mountain called it a yorishiro and surrounded the trunk with a rope they called shimenawa and hung paper streamers they called shide from it. He doesn’t care about their religious beliefs, but he definitely cares —a lot— about the tenderness in Shouyou’s eyes as their fingers caress one of the shide with a softness he’s only seen in them when they’re cradling their fingers through Atsumu’s hair. The smile that curls the corners of their mouth is different from the one he directs at Atsumu, however, and he can’t help but feel a little jealous.

“Ya could be givin’ _me_ all that love, y’know?” he whines.

Shouyou’s head snaps towards him so fast he’s scared they’ll get a stiff neck. Their amber eyes glimmer with amusement underneath the pale sunlight that reaches them through the dense foliage of a tree that feels as old as Atsumu himself.

“Are you jealous of a yorishiro, Atsumu-san?”

“’M jealous of whatever ya touch that isn’t me.”

“Aw,” they giggle, finally letting go of the shide. Atsumu’s tails wriggle a little while he runs his fingers through the soft, golden fur, in a futile attempt to not look like a grumpy old man that isn’t getting what he wants. Long, slim fingers finished in white, long claws cradle the fluffy hairs of his nine tails just so he can have an excuse to avert his eyes from the love of his life. “That’s cute. You know I love you, why be jealous?”

Atsumu huffs.

“Jealousy ain’t rational and y’know it.”

“True that,” Shouyou admits, nodding absentmindedly. They hum underneath their breath while they set course towards Atsumu’s position and yellow eyes follow the motion of the flowers and plants that grow under their feet. They wither as soon as Shouyou’s skin isn’t touching them, a vicious reminder of the autumn that steals their energy and announces the arrival of the snow and the cold. “May I sit?”

Atsumu looks down at his thighs and around, to his fluffy tails just begging to be used as a pillow. Shouyou’s finger points at his lap and he’s about to crack a joke about forbidding him from sitting so close— but refrains when he realizes there’s something he doesn’t really like moving behind Shouyou’s irises.

“Sure,” he says. Shouyou smiles, making a little sound of effort before they sit down on Atsumu’s lap, pressing the interior of their thighs against the exterior of his waist and with their forehead pressed softly against the side of his neck. Atsumu’s arms wrap around the smaller frame, pulling them closer, basking in the soft hum of approval that leaves their mouth. “I’ve spoiled ya way too much.”

Shouyou laughs softly, the hot, dampen air that leaves their mouth tickling over Atsumu’s sensitive skin. Atsumu’s fingers run through Shouyou’s hair, combing the wild orange locks in repetitive motions that end up making them drowsy.

“Atsumu-san,” they begin, almost purring under the caress. “Do you know what a yorishiro is for?”

Atsumu’s fingers stop.

“No. Y’know I don’t care ‘bout humans and their beliefs.”

“They’re supposed to be the home of a god once they are summoned,” they explain, softly. They blink slowly as if to push the sleepiness that invades them away. “This tree could technically be my home.”

Atsumu lets out an unintelligible sound to acknowledge Shouyou’s words. He doesn’t really understand where they’re coming from but he can’t help it when his arms go still around their small, almost fragile frame. There’s something strangely telling about their words.

“If humans summon me,” they continue, “that would be the only way I could come back to earth.”

Atsumu’s entire body goes stiff against Shouyou’s. The heavy drowsiness that seemed to weigh on their eyelids vanishes when they put some distance in between them just to frame Atsumu’s face with their hands, a sad smile pulling at the corners of their lips. He doesn’t like that smile; it’s painfully beautiful, heartbreakingly so, and he wants nothing but to wipe it from their face.

“What—” Atsumu begins, swallowing the thick, dry saliva that presses against the back of his throat. Shouyou’s fingers are warm and steady against his face, the only steady thing he can hold on to when he feels like his entire world is crumbling into nothing. He can see the edge of their thumbs in the periphery of his vision while they caress the high of his cheekbones. “The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

Shouyou sighs. Their eyes look sad.

“It means that Takamagahara found out about us,” he explains. Their voice seems distant and Atsumu feels like he’s not touching _his_ Shouyou. This person right here, in between his arms, framing his face with their hands, is not the Shouyou he fell in love with. They’ve been together for decades, enough for Atsumu to not care about counting, and they’ve never felt like this. It’s like they’re already gone. “They’re threatening to take away my immortality if this relationship doesn’t end.”

Atsumu’s fingers twitch while he presses them against Shouyou’s waist. He notices the warm blood that slides against his fingertips and nails and doesn’t have to look to know it’s like molten gold. It isn’t like a human’s or a demon’s blood, he remembers; this is ichor, the blood of the gods. Atsumu also knows Shouyou doesn’t feel any sort of physical pain.

A few decades ago he wouldn’t have needed to make that difference. But as Shouyou smiles softly, slowly at him, Atsumu realizes they’re suffering like they probably never have. The pain in their eyes is one of a kind, one that only immortal beings can feel. Atsumu recognizes it as a mirror of his own pain albeit having such different backgrounds; Shouyou was born in the beauty of creation and Atsumu was born in the destruction of fire. They’re so different yet it feels like they’re so alike, especially when he compares the pain both are feeling at this exact second.

“I don’t mind, you know?” they say, humming in surprise when Atsumu retires his right hand and Shouyou’s eyes catch a glimpse of the glimmering of their blood on his sharp nails. Atsumu’s tongue cleans up the mess absentmindedly. “Having my immortality taken away from me. I’ve been alive for far too many millennia for it to be fun anymore.”

“So? Why’re ya leavin’, then?”

“You silly fox,” Shouyou giggles, pressing a soft, tender kiss to the right corner of Atsumu’s mouth. Atsumu tightens his hold around Shouyou’s waist, pulling them closer until their chest is pressed against his. They gasp. “I wouldn’t leave earth if they weren’t threatening to hurt _you_.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“I don’t doubt it, Atsumu-san,” Shouyou sighs. There’s a soft smile on their face that makes Atsumu’s heart clench. He wants nothing but to hug them close and never let them go, to protect them from the rules of Takamagahara. Atsumu wants nothing but freedom for Shouyou, but not even the god of life is free from the chains creation put around their wrists and ankles. “But you’re a demon and they despise your kind. We’re not even supposed to talk to each other, let alone _love_ each other.”

Atsumu grits his teeth.

“So yer leavin’ to protect me?” he snorts. He doesn’t want to admit he can hear the pain in his own voice. Not if that means Shouyou will feel sadder at the end of the day. “Is that what yer sayin’?”

“Yes,” comes the answer, straightforward and painfully sour. Atsumu would’ve liked it better if Shouyou had sugar-coated it a little, just for the sake of his feelings. “I want you to be safe and happy.”

“Safe? Yah. Happy? Not that much.”

“It’s a sacrifice, I guess,” Shouyou whispers. They lean in, pressing the tip of their nose against Atsumu’s while closing their eyes. Atsumu feels like they’re definitely gone when they do that— not being able to see their amber eyes makes him feel anxious and desperate. “I love you too much to let Takamagahara lay one finger on you. So please, _please_ , Atsumu-san, never think I‘m leaving you behind because I want to.”

Atsumu closes his eyes and takes in a sharp inhale. The air hisses through his gritted teeth and with it, comes Shouyou’s scent. Damp soil, sunlight, and chlorophyll. They smell like _life_ itself and Atsumu, a demon born from fire and destruction, is enamoured with it. He doesn’t want to let go of Shouyou, doesn’t want to let go of the happiness they bring into his life. And judging by the way he can smell the salt of their tears, they don’t want to let go of him either.

Atsumu had never hated the gods. They didn’t mean that much to him; he didn’t interfere with their business as long as they didn’t interfere with his. And his only business was basically tricking humans into stupid deals, taking care of the forest, and spending hours upon hours turned into a nine-tailed fox, with his tummy upwards to get warm under the sunlight. Life had never meant a lot to him until Shouyou appeared and losing him meant going back to what he was before they showed up—

“You’re overthinking,” Shouyou murmurs. Their lips feel really close to Atsumu’s and he has to contain the burning need of smashing them together. It feels like kissing them is like eating away his last reserves of food. It’s ridiculous that he’s comparing the god of life with something as humane as food but he can’t help it. His brain isn’t really working. “It’s gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

“How’d ya know that?” he huffs. “’M the one stayin’ behind, aren’t I? How can ya say I’m gonna be—”

“Because I trust you,” Shouyou interrupts. He puts distance between them again, enough for their eyes to meet once Atsumu opens them reluctantly. Amber finds yellow under the cool shade of a yorishiro as old as the forest itself, and there, in between his arms, Shouyou looks ethereal. “I trust you to understand that I’m leaving you because I love you, not because I want to.”

Atsumu sighs.

“How long is it gonna be?”

“Probably forever. Or until you don’t show any interest in me anymore.”

“What, they want me to start a family with some mortal? That’s very fuckin’ funny, Shou.”

Shouyou just laughs but there’s no happiness in their laughter. Atsumu hates the sound.

* * *

There’s a weird creature sleeping on top of the shrine Atsumu built a while back so his wife can put up offerings to the god of life. He recognizes it the moment his yellow eyes fall on it, its black fur shining softly underneath the light of the ceremonial torches at each side of the small construction. Its paws hang at each side of the roof and he can hear it snoring as if nothing really matters. It’s a weird vision under the silver light of the full moon hanging in the middle of the sky, somehow softened by the orange, flickering glow of the torches.

“It’s a bit disrespectful to sleep on top of yer shrine, y’know.”

The creature stirs in its sleep, its snout opening to reveal long, sharp fangs that decades ago would’ve made a hiss come out of his mouth while his ears flattened against his skull. Right now, however, they only evoke a feeling of nostalgia he knows he won’t ever be able to shake. Blood orange eyes fix on him, roaming over his frame as if it’s the first time they do it and a sad smile curls up the corners of his mouth. This is painfully alike to the time they met.

“Atsumu-san!” the creature says. The orange vines that run down each side of its ribcage seem to shine like fire amidst the cloudy night. “It’s been so long!”

“Forty years, hasn’t it?”

“Four _decades_ since I left? Gwaaaah! It’s _really_ been so long! I feel like I was here only yesterday!”

Atsumu swallows around the lump in his throat. It’s been forty years, six months, and twelve days since Shouyou left. He can measure the passing of each day like new scars on tender skin and he’s never been one to keep track of the time he’s spent on this earth, but ever since Shouyou left he can’t help but count. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years— eventually, he came to think he’d never see them again. He expected decades to turn into centuries and those centuries into millennia.

“I’ve missed you, Atsumu-san.”

Shouyou’s voice sounds distant. Atsumu doesn’t really want to hear them talking about how much they’ve missed him. It feels like a punch to his gut— time never seemed to be his enemy until he met them and he still can’t hate the god of life despite everything they changed in Atsumu’s life and _about_ Atsumu’s life. It’s like some sort of curse, that one of knowing that doesn’t matter what he does, he _can’t_ have them. Shouyou exists in a different plane than he does and somehow, four decades ago, he dared to dream he could ignore the facts the universe was throwing at his face. He dared to dream, something only humans are allowed to do, and he got exactly what he signed up for: pain and regret.

He dared to dream like a human and here he is, with a family he doesn’t really love, married to a woman that sort of looks like Shouyou but will never be _them_ because they’re unique and irreplaceable.

His fingers twitch around the gunsen.

“You have a beautiful family,” Shouyou congratulates, wriggling their body until they can come down from atop of the shrine. Their tail looks as fluffy as he remembers it and their eyes are as deep as his brain always insists on reminding him. The well-known golden light covers the small body of an animal Atsumu learned decades ago it’s called a jackal, and what emerges is the person he recognizes as the love of his life. And they look more beautiful than he remembers as if his memory is incapable of doing them justice. “Twins, huh? They’re really pretty. They got your eyes.”

“Why do ya know that?” Atsumu teases, raising his eyebrows. He presses the tip of the gunsen against his lips in a nonchalant gesture that makes the corners of Shouyou’s lips twitch. “Ya’ve been spyin’ on me, Shou? That’s _so_ not what the god of life would do.”

It’s hard to pretend that he doesn’t care when the only thing he really wants is to have spent all those years alongside Shouyou. It’s hard to pretend that he wouldn’t change his wife and his sons for _one_ day with them— and that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love his sons. The cruel fact is that he loves the god of life more than he loves his own flesh and blood. It’s a vicious reminder of the fact that he doesn’t really value human life and that he is, in fact, a demon with selfish desires he does his best to hide from those that must not be hurt by them.

“I was worried!” Shouyou whines. “I was worried that you wouldn’t move on and do something with—!”

Their voice trembles. Shouyou presses their lips together in a thin line filled with something Atsumu can’t really identify and the desperation to do so makes him feel anxious and on edge, the fur of his nine tails bristling with the tension that snaps through his spine. He’s never wanted to hug them as much as he wants to now, but he knows he must refrain; it’s probable that Shouyou’s breaking all the rules of Takamagahara just for this short meeting. They’re already risking too much just by standing in front of him… Atsumu can’t push the limits any more than Shouyou’s doing right now.

“It’s good to see you, though!” they keep on as if the pain in their eyes is nothing. Atsumu grits his teeth and does his best to stay still, to not move. He knows that if he takes a step forward he won’t be able to refrain from wrapping his arms around Shouyou’s frame. “You look great! Married life must be nice, heh?”

“Please shut up,” Atsumu sighs. They haven’t been talking for ten minutes and he already feels like he _can’t do this_. It’s like a knife going down from his throat to his stomach and he wants to scream. This isn’t how he pictured his reunion with Shouyou because, to be honest, he _didn’t picture_ reuniting with Shouyou at all. That was out of his plans for the rest of his existence. And to have them congratulating him on a ten-year-old marriage and a pair of twins that remind him of the freedom he and Osamu never had— that’s just too much for him. He’s a demon but he’s not that strong. “Please stop talkin’.”

“Did I say something wrong?”

Atsumu snorts.

“Don’t congratulate me on a marriage ’m not happy with,” he hisses.

“I thought—”

“The only reason I married her’s ‘cause she looks like y—”

Shouyou’s always been fast. Faster than Atsumu. It still surprises him when he launches forward, appearing suddenly into his personal space to press the palm of their hand against his mouth, preventing him from finishing his sentence. The warmth coming from their skin seeps into Atsumu’s, electrifies his nerve ends like nothing’s done in these forty years, and he almost melts under the touch. Shouyou’s still thirty centimetres smaller than him, still thinner, and tinier in every sense of the word, but now it feels like Atsumu’s just an ant standing beside a giant.

“Don’t,” they warn. Their amber eyes glimmer when they notice the distance between them— or lack thereof. Their fingers tense against Atsumu’s face, amber irises searching for yellow ones, and once they find them Atsumu can see the confusion building up behind them, a bit higher with each beat of their hammering heart. Shouyou takes a step back with an apologetic smile on their face. “Ah, sorry. I shouldn’t have done that!”

“I only married her ‘cause she looks like ya.”

Shouyou lets out a pained noise as if Atsumu’s just punched them in the gut. It’s the same sound a wounded animal would make and it stirs something inside of Atsumu— some dark instinct of protection he never had the _necessity_ to feel. He knows Shouyou is perfectly capable of taking care of himself, to look after their own safety. They don’t feel physical pain after all, because that’s something reserved only for humans and demons. The ones that are supposed to be punished for something.

But Shouyou does feel emotional pain. Atsumu wonders if said pain replaces the physical one; their feelings seem to be so raw, so exposed, so easy to read that he never had any problem understanding them. They’re sensitive and compassionate with everyone but themselves and Atsumu can almost see the effort they’re making to pretend that didn’t hurt because they don’t want _Atsumu_ to hurt.

“You didn’t m—”

“I did,” Atsumu interrupts. “I still love ya, Shou. I never stopped.”

“Atsumu-san, don’t. _Please_.”

“Why? ‘Cause of the gods? Screw ‘em,” he growls. Oh, how he’s wanted to say that out loud for _decades_. To put into words the hatred he feels for Takamagahara makes him think of some sort of treasure, one he’s finally found after so much time of looking for it. It feels like finally reaching the summit of a mountain after centuries of harsh climbing. The only god he’s ever trusted and loved is standing right in front of him and they look like a scared deer staring straight into its hunter’s eyes. “I don’t care about their rules, Shou. Y’know that.”

“It doesn’t matter if you care about them or not, Atsumu-san. They apply to you anyway.”

“Is that a threat? Ya finally decided to be a god, too?”

They take a step backwards, looking like Atsumu just slapped them.

“I shouldn’t have come here,” they say in a strangled voice that sends a shiver of panic down Atsumu’s spine. He and Shouyou spent fifty years together before they had to leave and in all those years, he’d never heard that tone of voice coming out of Shouyou’s lips. It’s like having a completely different person standing right in front of him, at an arms-length, but he doesn’t dare to reach out in fear they’ll vanish once his fingers try to grasp them. “You’re not— you’re still…”

“Lemme guess… ya expected me to stop lovin’ ya once ya left?” he huffs out. The idea seems ridiculous when he says it like that. “That ain’t gonna happen, Shou. There isn’t a single curse Takamagahara can put on me that’ll make me stop lovin’ ya.”

Shouyou’s face goes paperwhite. They take a hesitant step forward, almost like an instinctive reaction they can’t withhold, one single twitch that seems to set the gears of _something_ into motion. That seems to set the world on fire.

There’s a sudden pain in the middle of Atsumu’s chest that feels very much like his heart constricting to reduce two sizes only by sheer force of _tension_. His blood boils and his pulse picks up the pace like he’s been running for ages and he can’t seem to breathe, it doesn’t matter how much he tries to push the air into his lungs. His knees want to give out under the weight of his body but at the same time it feels like they’re locked in place, unable to move in their sockets, and his throat is burning and his bones are breaking, splintering the inside of his _flesh_ —

When his knees finally give out underneath the weight of his body and his kneecaps hit against the stone-paved path that leads to the shrine, Atsumu wonders if this is what humans feel when they die. Pure, agonizing pain consuming every cell of their bodies until the only thing they’re able to feel is _fire_ sizzling in every nerve end. He wonders if their vision fills with red like his is doing right now, if they can savour the coppery taste of blood coating their tongues.

A single glimpse is all it takes for him to understand what’s happening. His eyes fall on the tip of his fingers, right there when his nails are, and he finds blunt, human nails that aren’t supposed to be there. He can’t feel the fluffiness of his fur against the gentle wind. He can’t feel his sensitive fox ears picking up even Shouyou’s heartbeat— because everything’s been _replaced_.

He raises his eyes for a second, just to find Shouyou kneeled in front of him. Their hands reach out towards his face, panic filling their features while colour drains from their face, and even amidst the overwhelming pain that overcharges his senses as his demonic powers are taken away, he has the burning need of telling him everything is going to be okay. They’ll be fine. They’re gonna get through this—

“No— no, no, not like this, _please_ , not like this. Atsumu-san? Atsumu. ‘Tsumu, please, no!”

 _It’s the first time ya call me like that_ , he wants to say. What comes out of his mouth aren’t words but a thread of blood that slides down the right corner of his lips, slowly dripping from his chin and onto the stone-paved path he built in front of the little shrine he dedicated to Shouyou.

Shouyou’s hands press against his shoulders and Atsumu feels a ray of hope sliding in between the creases of his pain. Their fingers feel pleasantly cool against his body, which feels like it’s _on fire_. He’s almost sure he’s a column of flames ascending towards the skies like some sort of mockery to the holiness of Takamagahara— he wants to think he’s able to destroy the idea they have about themselves. The only one who’s _worthy_ of the title of deity is currently in front of him, crying desperately as they guide his body to rest on their lap, his head pressed against their chest while their hands cradle through his hair and caress his ears with a softness he doesn’t feel deserving of.

“‘Tsumu? Hey, ‘Tsumu. It’s me, Shou. I’m here, okay? Just breathe— stay with me, _please_ , I’m begging you. Stay with me, there must be something I can do—”

They seem to be talking to themselves if the desperation Atsumu hears in their voice is some sort of lead. He might not have his demonic powers anymore, he might be a human through and through —which is weird, he never pictured himself living one second as a human—, but he can still pick up the absolute havoc his current state is causing in Shouyou. It feels like watching an old tree fall slowly, crumbling into pieces no one can put together again.

Shouyou’s always been pale, their skin like ivory under the sunlight or the moonlight. They always seem to glimmer underneath any sort of illumination and even here, under the soft glow of the ceremonial torches, they look like a fallen start dancing on the palm of Atsumu’s hands. Contrary to the hands in the fantasies of this agonizing human he currently is, Shouyou’s move quickly and desperately across his body— and not in the way lovers’ do. Not in the act of loving, that is. They’re trying to save Atsumu’s life but to no avail; each drop of blood that slides down the corner of his mouth is one drop less he has inside of his own body, each intake of air is close to being the last.

The god of life sobs as the person he loves the most in the world dies in between their arms, and Atsumu thinks that this is probably the only time he’s seen this expression of pure panic in their features. When they left, forty years ago, they only looked resigned to follow Takamagahara’s orders. Now, as Atsumu withers quickly and loses whatever it is that kept him alive, he thinks that resignation is the last thing he can find in their amber eyes.

They flicker to golden just for a second, and Atsumu wants to tell them how beautiful they are.

“No,” Shouyou sobs. “ _No_ , that’s too— not even Takamagahara can be this cruel. _Please_ don’t be—”

Atsumu doesn’t understand. He wants to.

“I’m _begging_ you if you’re taking him away from me, let me be with him at least—”

Atsumu coughs blood. It stains Shouyou’s alabaster face.

“I can’t— ‘Tsumu, I don’t want to leave you alone… please…”

He understands then. Shouyou’s closeness is slowing down his inevitable death. There’s nothing neither of them can do to stop it but the more Shouyou stays close, the more he’ll suffer through his death.

He must be some sort of masochist. He’s willing to take the pain if that means he can spend the rest of his life, doesn’t matter how long it is, at Shouyou’s side.

As Shouyou’s eyes fall on Atsumu’s blood-stained face, he discovers he can finally see the last thing he’d expected to find in their features: resignation.

“I’m so sorry, ’Tsumu. I love you so, _so much_.”

The absence of their hands’ warmth almost makes Atsumu whine. He knows he’s not able to do so, however, because every sound he intends on making turns out to be just the gurgling of blood in the back of his throat. The absence of their body hurts almost as much as every single one of his nerve ends and when he sees him dragging away from him, sobbing against their palms, Atsumu understands that this is it.

Shouyou will never touch him again. Not in the short time he still has of life.

Black replaces red in the corners of his vision as he takes a sharp inhale. Black stretches into his visual field and the next thing he knows is that he knows nothing.


	2. The boy and the crow

There’s a crow looking straight at him, without averting its gaze, and it feels like its tiny eyes are boring holes into Atsumu’s skull. He looks at the bird and tilts his head to the right, curiosity sparking in his brain and spreading across his body through his bloodstream, the questions flourishing with such ease he can’t help but gulp at the burning need of verbalizing them. It’s a small crow, smaller than the average, but its feathers shine bright under the golden sunlight, rainbows exploding from the edge of its frame as if the light is hitting a prism. His image is iridescent amidst the dense foliage that surrounds it and extends its green fingers in a semi-circle that marks the limit between the territory of the temple and the forest that reaches there where the eye cannot.

The crow tilts its head, too, with the same spark of curiosity glimmering in its deep, dark eyes, and Atsumu gasps at the response. He’s nothing but a child who’s found a wild animal that seems to show the same interest he feels for the creature, and although he wants to reach out and slide his fingers over the pitch-black feathers to see if the light reflecting on them changes with the motion, he refrains from it. It’s a precious moment, something he knows he can lose if he so even dares to blink. He might be a child but he knows about the fear humankind inspires in the creatures of the forest. He doesn’t blame them.

His mouth goes dry; he doesn’t dare to move a muscle, tries his best to breathe as silently as possible. The crow’s stare is fixed on him and due to the lack of pupils Atsumu can’t really know where it’s looking, but he prefers to assume the bird is looking at all of him. It takes away the temptation of taking one step forward.

Atsumu swallows and tries to lubricate his throat. This is such a precious moment, something that feels like it could slip in between his fingers at the most minimal distraction, and somehow he wants to stop time dead in its tracks so he can stay here, looking at this magnificent bird, for the rest of eternity.

“’Tsumu!”

 _Oh no_.

Atsumu sighs and expects for the inevitable moment when the crow opens up its wings and flies away. He’s almost savouring the second it happens and turns towards his twin to whine about how loud he is and how because of him he lost the chance to stare at a beautiful animal that seemed unfazed by his presence, but he’s halfway into telling Osamu he’s the stubbed toe of his life when he realizes the crow is still there.

And that it seems like its _laughing_.

“Uhm,” his brother breathes out. Two identical pairs of eyes find each other, shining in confusion while they try to measure the world around them; is it real, or somehow they managed to have the same fever dream at the same time? “’Tsumu? Is that crow _laughin’_?”

Both pairs of eyes turn towards the crow again and Osamu picks up the pace to reach his brother and stand beside him. The twins look at the bird perched on a way too thin branch to hold its weight; it still laughing at them.

“Sounds like it,” Atsumu answers. He’s unsure if his ears are betraying him or not, even though his brother seems to be hearing the exact same thing. He swallows the thick saliva that pools in the middle on his tongue and fixes his gaze once again on the animal in front of him, tilting his head to the left to see if the crow follows the motion. When it does, a marvelled sound leaves his throat and mixes with his brother’s in the air above their heads. “Didja see that, ‘Samu?!”

They exchange delighted glances, giggling with bad conceited happiness when the crow mirrors their glee. The bird ruffles the feathers of its chest, shakes its wings to accommodate the tip of the long feathers that stretch like overlapped fingers over the sides of its body and curve up alongside the long, iridescent tail that goes up and down a few times as if showing the interest it feels.

“Wanna keep it?”

“What kinda question’s that?” Osamu snaps towards him. Atsumu flinches at the intensity of his voice but relaxes when he notices the ragged breathing that hitches in his twin’s throat. Oh, he’s _excited_. “Of course!”

“If I may,” a voice interrupts. Osamu and Atsumu freeze on their spots and the surprise they feel upon hearing that voice coming literally _out of nowhere_ is too big for them to even look startled. The twins turn their gazes, ever so slowly, to the beautiful bird perched on the fragile branch, its claws encircling the thin stick. “I think none of you has stopped to ask what _I_ want.”

“’Samu.

“’Tsumu.”

“Hinata Shouyou. Nice to meet you both.”

There’s a giggle bubbling under the crow’s voice, something that feels like seafoam and feathers —both at the same time— brushing against Atsumu’s skin. It makes the hairs of his exposed arms stand on end like needles against his flesh and perhaps he would’ve felt scared but he doesn’t for some reason he can’t quite put his finger on. The eyes of the crow are fixed on him and Osamu, examining them with the utmost care, scanning them with the patience that only an expert working on their field could gather.

“Ya speak,” Osamu says, scrunching his nose in deep thought. His hazel eyes roam the frame of the bird, seem to draw the edges of each feather and the curve of its chest building up to its neck and its head, his stare hanging from the tip of a shiny, black, and deathly beak. “How can a bird speak?”

“That’s a good question,” the bird hums and its beak clacks softly as if it’s considering Osamu’s inquiry. It jumps from left to right on the branch, shaking the leaves and the flowers of the bushes underneath. “A very good question. How old are you, ‘Samu?”

“Five,” he replies.

“A very good question, indeed. For a five-year-old. I honestly expected you both to flip over and gush about _a talking bird_. Guess I was wrong.”

“Ya still haven’t answered ‘Samu’s question,” Atsumu demands, pouting. He was the one who discovered the talking bird, why isn’t he getting more attention from it? It’s unfair.

“Ah, yeah. See, I,” the crow begins, and the twins blink in confusion when its face contorts gracefully into something akin to a smile. Has any of them seen a crow smiling before? They sincerely doubt so, but the image engraves itself into their brains as if carved in stone, and they cannot help but wonder if their entire lives have been just a big fat scam. There’s no way crows aren’t able to _smile like this_ because they’re both sure it’s the most beautiful thing they’ve ever seen, “am a god.”

“Yer bluffin’.”

Osamu’s voice sounds stern, almost aggressively strict. Atsumu isn’t so sure about that like he isn’t sure about crows not smiling.

“Aw, c’mon! You’ve got a talking bird in front of you, how hard it is to believe gods exist?”

“Prove it,” Atsumu defies. The crow’s smile vanishes as it had never existed and there’s a glint of competitiveness that makes his mouth go dry. He’s only seen this response in Osamu’s eyes; no one had ever gotten a hang of a challenge as quickly as this _bird_ does. There’s something else, something Atsumu can’t quite recognize, moving behind those small, dark eyes that look like small marbles. “Prove that yer a god.”

The crow cackles once more, the shiny beak looking deathly under the golden sunlight. Its eyes look amused and deeply focused on the twins.

“You,” it starts, stretching its wings to each side of its body. Its feathers are as black as the death of the night and as sharp as knives. “I like you.”

The crow clicks its beak three times, almost like it’s savouring something over its tongue, and then there’s a golden light surrounding it, swirling in the air like silk on the wind and stardust and clouds around the summit of a mountain. The twins gasp at the sight of the light growing both in size and brilliance, the shape of an arm stretching to the right, a leg stretching down from the left. There’s a sigh of content that joins this _event_ unfolding in front of them as if it had jumped straight out of a fantasy book, and before the twins realize it, they’re looking at a person.

The leaves of the trees and the bushes seem to flutter away from them, opening up space for every single movement they could possibly come up with. The thin and fragile branch that held the weight of the crow enlarges, thickens when an ivory index finger runs along the length, fingertips tapping gently against the darkening trunk. The tree itself grows and reaches up and up, stretching twigs and branches and leaves like feathers to the sky as if it could dip its fingers into the velvet-like sky above their heads.

The person in front of the twins looks like someone that just came off age and their hair is a bright shade of orange that reminisces the sun. Atsumu thinks of a halo around their head, fire dancing on the tip of each strand, and marvels at the sight of the rainbows that explode from them very much like they did from the edge of the crow’s feathers. Their skin is ivory white under the sun that casts a soft glow over the world covered with the colours of the spring, the image of alabaster and snow flourishing in his mind at the sight of the blue veins embedded in the inside of their wrists.

Their eyes are pure molten gold for a second there and he gasps again before the colour settles down into a beautiful amber that steals his breath away. They _do_ look like a god, with the cape of black feathers that hangs lose from their shoulders, secured by a sun-shaped brooch, the golden tattoos that swirl over the skin of their shoulders and slide under the black bands around their arms, and the way their hair looks like fire around their head. Their naked toes and heels sink into the emerald green grass of the temple’s backyard, the rest of their feet covered by bands that loosen up as they go up on their calves. Atsumu notices golden strings tied around the bands to secure them.

“See? A god.”

“Uwah!” the twins sigh, big doe eyes blinking in astonishment.

“Yep, that’s the reaction I was looking for,” the god chuckles, sliding off of the now big trunk they’d been sitting on. Atsumu presses his palm against the bark and taps his fingers against it, trying to decipher what sort of magic trick this person just used to turn that fragile twig into _this_. “Allow me to introduce myself again, then. My name’s Hinata Shouyou and I’m the god of life.”

Amber eyes fall on Atsumu, a wide grin stretching over the god’s lips. They look like they’re waiting for something and Atsumu sways on his tiptoes while trying to ignore the piercing stare the person in front of them is dedicating to him. The more this person looks at him, the more Atsumu feels like he’s forgetting something; their eyes seem to set things into motion inside of his brain, stirring his memories in search of something he’s pretty darn sure isn’t there.

“So?” they press, chuckling underneath their breath. “Aren’t you gonna ask me to prove it?”

“Uhm,” Osamu coughs, drawing the god’s attention to him. “I think ‘Tsumu’s already satisfied, uh— sir?”

The god chuckles once again, seemingly entertained by the overly formal way Osamu’s treating them. The corners of their eyes wrinkle when they smile and Atsumu blinks up at them; they’re beautiful in a way he knows he won’t find in any other place in the universe. Their eyelashes are long and orange, as well as their eyebrows and hair, and the golden tattoos that spiral down their naked shoulders and stretch across their arms shine bright under the sunlight. They look like a rainbow or a mirage and at the same time, Atsumu knows they’re corporeal enough for him to be able to touch them.

“Well then,” Shouyou sighs, looking up at the sun hanging in the middle of the sky. Lazy clouds make their way across the light-blue extension, and the twins whistle in surprise when they don’t blink under the brightness of the king star, “guess it’s time to check on the temple, don’t you think?”

“Temple?”

“Yes,” Shouyou answers, fixing their gaze on the twins once again. They take a few steps forward and Atsumu takes a surprised gaze at their naked toes and heels, pressing against the soil. Flowers and plants flourish underneath their skin, rising from the earth until they reach their knees, surrounding their ankles for as long as they can until their leg moves away. The climbing plants swirl away from their skin, standing on their own whilst the process starts once again with each step they take; Atsumu watches in deep amazement, his breath hitching in his throat. “This is one of the temples built for me, isn’t it?”

Atsumu and Osamu blink at the same time.

“Yes,” they answer simultaneously.

“And you two are the children of the caretaker, isn’t that right?”

“Yes.”

“Descendants of the Miya family?”

“Yes.”

“Take me to the caretaker, please. I’ll be staying on earth for a while, and I need to discuss some business with them.”

* * *

Shouyou, the god of life, ends up staying for two hours. Their business had nothing to do with something worrisome but more with an “I’m bone-tired and I need a place to sleep without all of them fussing over me” kind of situation that had their parents running from here to there with the overwhelming idea of the god of life themselves staying at their place. Atsumu’s mother sighs and reminds her husband that isn’t _their_ place precisely; it’s the god’s. Whenever they decide to come down to the human world, their only purpose would be to serve them without hesitation.

Atsumu believes that is a bit unfair. His dad hadn’t asked to be born into the Miya family as well as Osamu and he hadn’t; it feels unjust to be bound to serve a whimsical god as if their lives don’t matter just because of the ties of their blood. He refrains from speaking up his mind, however, because there’s a glint of pride in his parents’ eyes when the god leaves as quickly and mysteriously as they’d come; it’s something Atsumu can’t wrap his head around.

The god of life is whimsical, they aren’t polite enough to stay for tea, and they make his parents fuss over stuff they usually don’t care that much about, like the amount of purification water in the well. It makes Atsumu puff out annoyed breaths that in return make Osamu frown.

“Dja think they’ll come back?” Osamu asks once he’s done sweeping the surroundings of the Zen garden. “The god of life, I mean.”

“I hope they don’t,” Atsumu answers, grimacing at the mere thought of it. He pushes the rake through the grey sand of the Zen garden in circular motions, walking slowly and calmly around a round rock that’s at least one head taller than him. The rake is also bigger than him. Everything’s bigger than him and he sighs because he isn’t supposed to do that with the Zen garden. His parents will nag at him for it. “They didn’t even stay for tea. Don’t ya think that’s rude?”

Osamu kicks a pebble away from the wooden frame of the Zen garden, supporting the entire weight of his body against the broom handle. His eyes are fixed on Atsumu while he imitates him by enveloping his fingers around the handle of the rake and pressing his cheek against his right thumb. The twins lock stares for a few seconds, in identical positions, before letting go tired sighs that make them giggle.

“It _is_ a bit rude,” Osamu nods, going back to the task at hand. The brushing of the broom against the gravel of the patio mixes with the rustle of the Zen garden’s sand. “But I think we can’t just… judge them for bein’ rude, can we? They’re a god, after all. They’ve got more important stuff to do.”

“Then why,” Atsumu begins, stomping on the sand with all the strength his small, five-year-old body can muster, “would they come here and say they want to rest?”

“Maybe they’ll come back tomorrow?”

The perspective makes Atsumu frown.

“I hope not.”

Shouyou doesn’t come back tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, nor the day after that. They don’t come back in weeks, months, and by the time Atsumu remembers they’re supposed to be getting everything ready for the god’s arrival, his resentment against them has withered away in the same manner the flowers on the limit of the forest have. They’re in winter now, and the snow falls thick and profusely over the patio of the temple, layering over the Zen garden and the statue of the crow that symbolize the god of life, coating the top of the shrine in the centre of the Miya’s land. It covers the orange roof of the temple and slides down the edges in stalactites that Atsumu knows will be dripping in the morning.

The Miya family waits for the return of the god of life, but they seem to wait to no avail. They don’t come back and Atsumu’s parents pass away when the twins turn fifteen.

There is a new care taker of the temple since the twins are too young to be in charge of it. His name is Kita Shinsuke, one of their cousins, and he’s strict and downright terrifying. It’s not like he screams at the twins nor does something as awful as torturing them, but the twins are scared of him in ways they cannot comprehend. His eyes seem to know everything there is to know about the Miya twins and he seems to have succeeded there where their own parents had failed; bringing order into the household.

They’re also the most dramatic pair of teenagers to ever exist.

The god of life returns during the winter of their fifteenth year on earth and they don’t do it in their crow form. They show up on the temple’s doorstep, covered only with their black feathers cape, the orange hair marbled with snowflakes and the brightest smile Atsumu’s ever seen.

“Yo!” they greet, raising their right hand to dedicate him a waving of their fingers.

Atsumu has to swallow the burning need of closing the door on their nose. He has to repeat himself —in the short span of five seconds— that doing so would be _rude_ and that slamming doors isn’t as dramatic with shouji as it is with the wooden, occidental ones.

“Shouyou-sama,” Atsumu chokes out. His fingers tense against the red wooden frame of the shouji as his eyes scan the frame standing on the engawa. The cloak, as he remembers, drags along the floor and they’re still wearing those bands that leave their toes and heels naked. Their hair is still as furiously orange as it was ten years ago and their eyes still shine like molten gold in between one blink and the other. “I uh— w-welcome back.”

Shouyou squints and Atsumu has a tiny déjà vu. He remembers having felt this way all those years ago— the moment the crow’s eyes looked at him with defiance and something else sliding underneath, almost stretching its fingers to reach out to him. It stirs memories he doesn’t own; it feels like someone’s looking for something that was there a long time ago but isn’t anymore.

“You dyed your hair,” the god comments. Atsumu chokes on his own spit; he and his brother decided to change the colour of their hair a few months ago, after their parent’s death. Goodbye to the dark brown hair, hello blond hair, he thinks, while running unconsciously the fingers of his left hand through the locks. “It used to be dark brown.”

He clears his throat, trying his best not to hack a lung while he steps aside to give the god of life enough space to enter the temple. They do not move albeit having Atsumu’s hand pointing to the interior of the tokonoma, their amber eyes scanning his features with an interest they didn’t show when he was five.

“Is everythin’ okay?” he asks. The worry in his voice is genuine— he’s not that much of an asshole to not care about someone standing on his door. He’d do it even if said someone wasn’t the god of life, a literal _deity_ with enough power to wipe him off of existence.

“Absolutely okay!” they singsong, finally stepping into the tokonoma. Atsumu is about to reach out and offer them to take care of their cloak when they undo the brooch and let the garment slide down their back, straight to the floor. “Do you have any tea?”

The cloak disappears before Atsumu can even take in the sharp, annoyed inhale he intended to. He stares at the place where the feathery hem of the cloak should have pooled on the wooden floor, hazel eyes scanning the back of Shouyou’s heels and ankles, looking for something that most definitely isn’t there.

“Hello?”

“Uh?”

“Tea. I asked if you had any tea… are you okay—? Uh. Ah, I forgot your name,” Shouyou admits, turning on their spot to face Atsumu. They raise their right hand, scratching at the back of their head in an apologetic manner that makes Atsumu’s stomach flop. The feeling is foreign as if it doesn’t belong to him and it makes his throat constrict; it isn’t his, but it feels like it is because he _recognizes it_ somehow.

Atsumu clenches his teeth before taking in a deep breath.

“Atsumu,” he says. Shouyou’s eyes widen for a second, amber flickering to golden with a feeling he recognizes as _pain_. He shouldn’t be able to recognize it and he knows it, but at this point he’s decided to ignore all the things he shouldn’t know for the sake of his mental health. “Miya Atsumu.”

Shouyou hums under their breath, clearing their throat as if they’re breathing around a lump. Atsumu wonders why do they look so uncomfortable all of a sudden, why their eyes seem to hold a sadness too big for any human to bear. But they’re not human, they’re a god, and gods are able to feel beyond anything a human could ever begin to imagine. It’s somehow heartbreaking to know that there’re beings out there that have to carry all of those unbearable feelings by themselves.

“Nice to meet you, Atsumu-san.”

The way their voice intones his name, the way their tongue wraps around the syllables, and the way an edge of cruel pain seems to slide under the honorific make Atsumu’s heart clench. Once again he’s viciously attacked by the idea of living an endless déjà vu, the idea that this isn’t the first time he hears the god of life saying his name aloud. It doesn’t belong to him like neither do the rest of feelings he’s been experiencing ever since he saw Shouyou standing on the engawa. It’s confusing and painful, and he yearns for these feelings to stop.

“We met already. I was a kid.”

“I know,” they say, smiling broadly. The gesture doesn’t reach their eyes, however, and the sadness in them is still visible, still incredibly big for Atsumu to be able to wrap his head around it. It’s as noticeable as fresh blood flowing from an open wound. “But you were five and I didn’t talk to you that much. We technically don’t know each other, right?”

Atsumu sighs. He doesn’t want to agree with the words of a whimsical god that made his parents go back and forth when he was a kid, a god that didn’t even give them the chance of serving them tea. He still has to because they _are_ right, but he does whatever he can to look as angry as possible while doing so.

Shouyou giggles.

“You look like you’d rather burn your tai—” they being, stopping mid-sentence with a grimace. “Nevermind that. Are your parents at home?”

He does his best not to let out a groan of annoyance but fails miserably. Shouyou blinks, confused, before pressing their lips into a thin line.

“They died. A few months ago, actually.”

“Oh,” they sigh. They clear their throat, shifting the weight of their body from one foot to the other before trying again. “I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay. Ya didn’t have to know.”

* * *

For having been the one who created every single tree and creature in existence, for having been the one who put together the systems that make the earth go into motion, the god of life is incredibly small and incredibly… _normal_. Their voice is loud, annoyingly so sometimes, their hunger reminds Atsumu of a teenager, and their energy seems to be inexhaustible. They chitchat gleefully with Kita and refuse to call him “Shinsuke” albeit having told there’s no need to show respect to a simple human —to what they answered with an “every creature deserves the utmost respect”—, and drink cup of tea after cup of tea without showing signs of ever getting tired of it.

Osamu and Atsumu exchange bored looks. His twin is sitting on the other side of the table with an empty cup of tea at an arms-length, his eyes drifting absentmindedly to the empty plate where a few rations of onigiri used to sit. Shouyou ate them all.

“So,” Kita continues, sipping calmly at his cup of steaming tea. Atsumu won’t ever say it out loud, but he admires his ability to look unbothered by the weirdest situations. Kita didn’t even freak out when Shouyou entered the room, “how long will ya be stayin’?”

Shouyou hums, their fingers tapping the cup of tea in between their hands to the tune of a song that only exists in their head. Their amber eyes fall momentarily on Atsumu, scanning his frame as if looking for something they know beforehand they won’t be able to find.

“Indefinite time,” they answer, smiling from ear to ear. He doesn’t want to admit this either, but that’s the most beautiful smile he’s ever seen in his life. Atsumu’s sure it can light up the darkest parts of the forest that extends from the limit of the garden and up the mountain. “I need to take a break.”

Osamu huffs.

“From what?”

“God… _stuff_ ,” they answer, dedicating Osamu a curlicue of their wrist as if trying to physically push the subject away from them. Shouyou looks suddenly bored and sort of angry, like a petulant child whose favourite toy stopped being interesting out of the blue. “I’m not as young as I used to be.”

Atsumu blinks in confusion. They don’t look tired per se, but he can still see slight bags under their eyes, the purple standing out like a sore thumb against the milky ivory of their skin. There’s something about his instinct screaming at him from the back of his head, too, telling him that Shouyou is faking the energy and the cheerfulness that seems to easily cover up everything else.

“Well,” Kita says, clearing his throat, “it will be our pleasure to have ya here, Shouyou-sama.”

Shouyou grimaces.

“Please don’t call me that—” they start.

“It’s either that or ya stop callin’ me ‘Kita-san’. Choose,” Kita interrupts, raising his eyebrows. There’s defiance in his voice and Atsumu already knows the god of life cannot resist a challenge.

The days after that become a blur of the weird feeling of knowing the god of life, creator of everything he sees, is staying at his place, and the constant reminder of how much he didn’t want them to come back from wherever they went when he was five years old. It’s complicated to relate this guy, who’s at least ten centimetres smaller than him, to the image he used to have of them when he was a kid; when he and Osamu had met them, it’d felt like meeting a god was supposed to feel. The revelation, still too big for a child’s brain, of supernatural creatures existing in a superior plane, with unimaginable powers capable of creating a world and everything existing in it. The questions that rose in his head are long dead —did a different god create the universe?—, but he can feel them slowly coming back to existence the longer he spends besides the god of life.

They’re not as whimsical as he’d thought at first. They’re actually quite humble, humbler than he’d expected in the first place; they’re eager to learn everything about the way humans live, the way they learn, and do things in general. They get excited by the most ordinary things, like going out of the temple to go buy groceries at the village at the foot of the mountain. Their human disguise is good, too, although Atsumu will never admit that out loud; they look like a fifteen-year-old kid, with the wild orange locks softly caressed by the wind coming from the sea.

What ends with Atsumu’s initial annoyance towards the god is the image of them crouched outside in the garden, their black, feathery cloak wrinkled against the fluffy coat of snow which covers what during summer is an extension of emerald green grass. They’re whispering softly to something Atsumu can’t see, but their voice is clear and soft as the wind pushes it towards his ears. He’s standing on the engawa, having forgotten the idea of sweeping some of the dust accumulated between the creases of the wood, looking at Shouyou as if it’s the first time his eyes see them.

“It’s okay, you can come out,” they say, giggling softly. They giggle a lot, Atsumu has noticed. They do it all the time and it’s not always a happy sound. He’s also noticed that. “Ah, no… no, I’m not a human. C’mere, I’ll show you.”

There’s some rustling between the branches and twigs covered by the snow. Atsumu remembers having found the crow near that spot, surrounded by leaves that didn’t seem to want to touch them in the most venerable demonstration of respect he’d ever seen. The glimpse he catches doesn’t reveal a crow, however, but a white owl that seems to limp towards the god.

“Oooh, I see. Your leg? Oh, and your wing too. What happened to you?”

Atsumu huffs under his breath. As if the owl’s gonna answer.

“Ah… hunters.”

 _What_.

“Shouyou-sama?” he calls, without really meaning to.

“Yes, Atsumu-san?”

“What’re ya doin’?”

Shouyou hums softly before they straighten their posture. Ever so slowly, as if they’re trying to make it as less traumatizing as possible, they turn around to reveal the owl in between their arms, comfortably cuddled against their chest like it’s something that happens every day.

“This little fella broke his leg and his wing while he escaped from some hunters,” they explain, walking towards the building with the bird carefully cradled in their arms. Their fingers caress the beak with utmost adoration, almost tickling it playfully. “I’m gonna heal him.”

“I didn’t know ya could heal stuff.”

“He’s not _stuff_ , he’s a living creature,” Shouyou corrects, softly. Atsumu doesn’t imagine the deathly edge that slides underneath their voice, though. “And yes! I’m the god of life, y’know, there’re a lot of things I can do!”

“Can you bring people back from the dead?” Atsumu doesn’t want to ask, but he does it nonetheless. He doesn’t even know why, he just _does it_ , and some cruel part of his brain supplies that maybe he still has the hope of seeing his parents again.

When his eyes lock with the god’s, he sees that pain again. The one that seems too big to fit into such a small body, the one that seems to be the same size as the entire universe.

“No,” they answer, running their fingers absentmindedly through the soft feathers of the owl’s head. “I sadly can’t bring anyone back from the dead.”

* * *

Ever since the owl incident, Atsumu starts to spend more time with Shouyou. It’s interesting to discover all the things they can do besides healing people, animals, and plants, and it’s even more interesting to hear the stories about Takamagahara, the land of the gods where they reside almost all the time. They don’t disclose the deepest secrets of their kind, however, and albeit knowing perfectly how curious Atsumu feels about them, they only smile secretively.

“These things are not for human ears, Atsumu-san,” they say, constantly, while smiling up at him like he’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever created.

“Yer borin’. Gods are borin’.”

“That we are,” they answer, giggling.

It might be Atsumu’s imagination, but Shouyou’s health seems to improve the more time they spend together. There where he used to find deep, dark bags under their eyes, he now finds soft, smooth skin that looks as fresh as the skin of a peach. There where he used to find fake smiles and giggles, he knows bumps face-first into outbursts of laughter that seem to last an eternity and a half. It’s mesmerizing to see them getting better and better with each day that passes, it’s incredible to see the way their mood improves a little every hour.

It’s unbelievable how easy Atsumu falls for the god of life, too. It’s ridiculous, honestly, to fall in love with a deity. It’s a cliché and Atsumu has always seen himself as someone who’s the last person to live a cliché, yet here he is, looking at the way their mouth curls up into this special smile that they only seem to aim at him. It’s like a shot through the heart and it _hurts_ in such a good way that he never wants it to stop.

It’s been two months since they arrived and whenever Atsumu decides to compare the person they were when they stepped into the tokonoma to the person they are now, he can’t help but think they’re two completely different beings. Their laughter, their smile, their _eyes_ seem all so happy and healthy now that he only wants to squish their cheeks in between his hands and kiss the tip of their nose.

Atsumu scowls. That’s not a thought he should be having while Shouyou caresses the head of their owl. The winter’s coming to an end and he can smell the fragrance of the spring in the air, but he also can feel a pang of jealousy whenever Shouyou touches something that isn’t him.

“You’re looking at me,” Shouyou comments. Their feet hang loosely over the edge of the engawa and they swing them back and forth like a child would do. “Is there something on my face?”

Atsumu blushes slightly and averts his eyes. Shouyou’s, however, stay glued to his face with an adoration he doesn’t know how to interpret.

“It’s nothin’,” he answers. “I was just… wonderin’.”

Curiosity ignites behind amber irises and Shouyou leans in towards Atsumu until their face is centimetres away from his shoulder.

“Oh? Tell me. Maybe I can solve your questions.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

Shouyou blinks. The sadness is back in their eyes and Atsumu regrets the moment the words come out of his mouth. He didn’t want to see _that_ , let alone having been the one who caused it. The only thing he wants is for Shouyou to be as happy as possible.

“Once,” they answer, letting their fingers slide down the owl’s back. The animal clicks its beak in approval. “He was a demon.”

“Wait, demons _exist_?”

Shouyou laughs and it sounds like feathers and seafoam caressing Atsumu’s skin at the same time. He has to contain the burning need to shiver.

“Of course they do!” they say, smiling. “This particular one was a kitsune. He was… beautiful.”

Atsumu hums under his breath. There’s the pang of jealousy he feels whenever Shouyou shows affection to something or someone that isn’t him, and albeit his attempts to fight the urge of shifting uncomfortably on his spot, he fails miserably.

“What was his name?” he asks, only to hurt himself a little more. To know that the god of life loved someone some time ago hurts and maybe knowing the name of this lucky demon might make him fall out of love with _them_. It’s a complicated process he doesn’t really know how to explain, but he only knows pain as a way to cut the bonds in between hearts.

“It’s a secret.”

Atsumu pouts.

“What happened to him?”

Atsumu decides that he’s never going to ask anything about this topic again. The sadness in Shouyou’s eyes is even bigger than the old one, and the way their lips curl up in a pained smile makes him think that he’s reviving everything they went through. He doesn’t even know how long ago that was, but the memories seem to be fresh in their mind.

“Takamagahara turned him into a human and then killed him,” they answer. The owl pushes its head against their hand as if to comfort them, and Shouyou lets their fingers tickle its beak without putting too much attention into the motion. “I was punished for loving someone who I shouldn’t have loved.”

Shouyou leaves that night, leaving Atsumu behind. He wonders if his little interrogatory made them feel so uncomfortable they couldn’t stand being in his presence, but Kita’s words make him feel more at peace: they have business to take care in the land of the gods since spring is starting and it’s their responsibility to supervise the developing of the new life coming into the world.

Atsumu decides to wait. He doesn’t think he can love someone who isn’t Shouyou, after all. The only thing he can do is to love them in silence; that’s the only thing he’ll _ever_ be able to do anyway. Shouyou was punished for loving someone they shouldn’t have loved once, and he doubts he wants to go through the same thing again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shouji (障子 — しょう.じ): paper sliding door.
> 
> Engawa (縁側 — えん.がわ): wooden strip of flooring immediately before windows and storm shutters inside traditional Japanese rooms. Recently this term has also come to mean the veranda outside of the room as well, which was traditionally referred to as a nure'en.
> 
> Tokonoma (床の間 — とこ. の. ま): also referred to simply as toko, is a Japanese term generally referring to a built-in recessed space in a Japanese style reception room, in which items for artistic appreciation are displayed. In English, tokonoma is usually called alcove. The items usually displayed in a tokonoma are calligraphic and/or pictorial scrolls and an arrangement of flowers.


	3. The fox and the crow

“We’re out of rice.”

Atsumu draws circles on his temples with the tip of his fingers, massaging them in a futile attempt of getting rid of a headache that’s just beginning. It feels like it starts from the back of his head, right above his nape, and extends its fingers towards the front until there’re metaphorical fingers pressing against the back of his eyeballs.

“Can’t ya just talk to Kita-san? He’ll probably get ya a few bags of rice by mornin’.”

Osamu gives him the side-eye, staring at him like Atsumu is the stubbed toe of his existence, like some sort of cross to bear. And a heavy one.

Good. Atsumu feels the same way. They’ve been together for twenty years and although he loves his brother, he still has the burning need of smacking his face in whenever he looks at him like he’s his personal pain in the ass.

“We don’t have any rice for _today_ , ‘Tsumu. Are ya dumb or somethin’?”

“Oi,” he grumbles. “Respect yer elders.”

“Yer _literally_ five minutes older than me. Shut up.”

Atsumu smiles up at Osamu from his position at his desk. Osamu looks like he wants to deck him.

His twin’s about to answer —probably something along the lines of “get fucked, ‘Tsumu”, very common, he’d give that a five out of ten— when they hear a knocking coming from the door. It’s not usual for them to get visitors in the temple these days; modernity has taken a toll on the religious beliefs of some people and albeit their problems getting solved during New Years and other religious festivities, the rest of the year things are pretty quiet. Which is exactly why they jump on their spots, startled, when the knocking echoes through the house.

Osamu smiles wickedly.

“Well, ‘Tsumu,” he starts, pretending he’s not about to bullshit his way out of their shared responsibilities as caretakers of the temple, “since yer the eldest twin, yer the one who’s gotta attend to the guests, arentcha?”

“Yer one little shit, didja know that?”

“Yah, ya tell me all the time.”

Atsumu sighs. He was just going over some stuff for college but there’s always something to do around the temple that keeps him busy. How has he managed to keep his college life on track while also living his student life is still a mystery to both Atsumu and Osamu. Maybe it’s Kita’s presence and his life motto —“do everything properly”— what keeps him— _them_ on track. Osamu always slacks.

He stands up from his chair and makes a beeline towards the door of his room, passing by Osamu while sticking his tongue out. His brother blatantly ignores him while he makes his way to get the guest, grumbling under his breath about how unfair he thinks it is to have _him_ and only _him_ taking care of these sorts of tasks.

The person at the door is lost and is asking for directions. They carry a big backpack that looks twice their size and Atsumu wants to laugh but he refrains from doing so. He answers their questions with as much patience as he can muster, trying his best to be professional for the sake of the temple and the small chance of this person coming back to visit during New Years.

“Oh, one last thing,” they say. Atsumu has to swallow down the annoyance building up in his chest— he’s been giving directions to this person for over fifteen minutes. The fact that they seem to be a foreigner doesn’t help either, especially since his Hyougo accent is, according to every single person he’s ever met, _thick_. “There’s a weirdly dressed kid talking to an owl…?”

“There’s a _what_ ,” he hisses. He isn’t mad at all, he has a hunch about who this ‘weirdly dressed kid talking to an owl’ is, but the fact that they didn’t go up to Atsumu in the first place is surprising.

“A kid. They look like… I don’t know, eighteen? Near the shrine. Maybe they’re lost…”

“No, they aren’t,” he cuts them off. “I uh— I’ll go and check. Ya okay with the directions?”

“Oh, yeah! Thank you so much!”

“Yah, no prob.”

Atsumu waits until the person and their backpack are out of his sight to slide into his shoes and run for his life towards the shrine. The ceremonial torches aren’t lit during the day but the offerings are fresh— and they look like someone munched on them. He knows exactly who did it and he’s still too shocked about being replaced by an _owl_ to really care.

When he arrives to the shrine, he finds Shouyou sitting crisscrossed on the floor with the owl sitting on their shoulder. The animal rubs its head against their cheek, making the most beautiful stream of giggles fall from their mouth while they say out loud how much that tickles. Their orange hair is as wild as it always is and the tattoos that spiral down their arms shine bright under the golden sunlight that bathes them in a glow that almost feels surreal.

“Shouyou-sama,” he calls, taking a sharp inhale. It’s been five years. He’s been waiting for five years to see them again and the first thing they do is to _look for the goddamn owl_. “I didn’t know ya were here.”

Shouyou turns their head towards Atsumu, the owl’s eyes falling on him with a curiosity akin to that of a child that’s forgotten someone they used to know. Amber irises roam over his frame before they get up, palming slowly their pants and legs to get rid of the dust before they disappear in the blink of an eye and Atsumu feels something very solid and very warm colliding against his chest. The owl is sitting right where Shouyou used to be.

“Atsumu-san!” Shouyou chirps, wrapping their arms around his waist. The speed of the motion and the collision push the air out of his lungs in a choked _oof_ that doesn’t seem to bother them while they all but bury their face into Atsumu’s chest. “I’ve missed you so much!”

Atsumu imitates Shouyou and wraps his arms around their frame by sheer instinct. He isn’t really giving much thought about the fact that he’s been thinking about the god of life ever since they left him behind, head over heels for them and without the chance of confessing their feelings. He isn’t really thinking about how useless his feelings are while he buries his nose into the wild, orange locks that smell like _life—_ damp soil, sunlight, and chlorophyll.

The scent makes a shiver go down his spine as memories flourish behind his closed eyelids. He sees a jackal with orange vines swirling at each side of its ribcage, sees Shouyou caressing the shide of the yorishiro behind the temple. Feels their lips against his in a heated kiss shared under the soft starlight.

“Atsumu-san?” Shouyou murmurs against his chest. He realizes then he’s gone still against their body, still holding them tight in between the circle of his arms. “Are you okay?”

Atsumu presses his eyelids together with a bit more strength, trying to get rid of the residual images of a life he knows it doesn’t belong to him. The hands he sees in the memories are different to his own, he sees the golden fur of nine tails that cannot belong to him because he’s a human—

“’m fine,” he lies, sighing against Shouyou’s forehead. “I’ve missed ya too, Shou.”

He lets go of Shouyou and smiles from ear to ear, ignoring the familiar taste of the nickname coating his tongue. He’s used to these fragments of memories he knows he doesn’t own, but they had never been this clear before; they feel like a childhood memory, blurry on the edges but pretty much _his_ albeit knowing they’re not. It’s so confusing that he almost misses the expression that draws itself over Shouyou’s features, their radiant smile tensing up a bit in the corners of their mouth. The colour of their eyes flickers from amber to golden for a second and he recognizes it— not because he’s seen it before but before there’s a washed-out image of them looking at him from above.

“Let’s get ya inside, yah? ‘Samu’s gonna be glad to see ya.”

“Did Osamu-san make those onigiri?” they ask, pointing at the small open doors of the shrine, the plate with the offerings half empty with an onigiri munched on. “Or did Kita-san make them? They were _so_ good…”

Atsumu chuckles.

“’Samu made them,” he says, nodding. “Kita-san’s currently away… he’s workin’ for the family rice farm.”

“Oh,” Shouyou pouts. They look disappointed. “That’s so sad, I’ve missed his food.”

“Don’t let ‘Samu hear that,” he warns. “He’ll feel offended and give ya so much food ya won’t be able to eat it all.”

As always, warning Shouyou through a challenge only ends up causing the exact opposite of the expected: they go and comment on how much they’ve missed Kita’s food in Takamagahara and, of course, Osamu takes the matter in his own hands. Atsumu is kind of surprised when his brother manages to cook a full three-course meal without anything with rice in it and when Shouyou sits down to stuff their face, Atsumu just shakes his head, knowing damn well they accomplished their —apparently— main objective: eating until they can’t even swallow saliva.

Their afternoon goes by quickly and when the sun starts setting on the horizon, Atsumu has to carry a very sleepy Shouyou to the room they used the last time they stayed at the temple. They mumble under their breath, words that feel like an endless loop between a fox and a jackal, about missing someone, and about being sorry. It’s almost like a child’s apology and Atsumu doesn’t really know what to do with it; he feels jealous because he’s sure he’ll never stop being jealous of whatever or whoever Shouyou touches that isn’t him, but he also feels deeply saddened by the state they seem to be in.

Atsumu lays them down, trying to not give in to the temptation of caressing their cheek or cradling his fingers through their hair. The soft glow of the moon falls through the open shouji of the room, the shape of the big rock in the Zen garden drawn against the starry night. He can smell the fragrance of the pond and the damp rocks that surround it mixing with Shouyou’s own scent.

“Sleep tight,” he whispers, standing up and walking out of the room.

* * *

The old room where they keep the family relics hasn’t been dusted since Kita left to take care of the family rice farm. If someone asked him about it he would probably say something akin to “well, since there’s only two of us now, it’s harder to take care of a room where no one even goes into” just to brush off the fact that they’ve been slacking off for months now. It’s late at night and the light bulb buzzes over his head, bathing the shelves with a washed-out glow that seems to turn the world into something surreal. There’re a few bookshelves covering an entire wall of the broad room and delicately decorated boxes, made out of silver and gold-encrusted bamboo, filled with old scrolls written in such ancient, stylized kanji he doesn’t even bother trying to read them anymore. There’re old, delicate rosewood boxes with carefully folded kimonos wrapped in tatoushi he’s never really put attention to and an old black and golden gunsen made out of bamboo and paper inside one of the boxes.

Atsumu dusts carefully every surface and checks the corners for spiders. He reorders the books in the shelves, running his fingers through the old, well-loved spines, trying his best to understand the oldest ones.

His finger bumps into a scroll carefully tied with a string whose colour’s been washed out by the passing of time. It seems to be at least three hundred years old, judging by the outdated kanji written in the traditional Japanese way on the front of it. It’s covered in dust, as the rest of the room is, and it actually looks like no one’s touched in in a long, long time. Atsumu wonders if Kita ever even found it.

He knows he won’t be able to read a lot of it, but something pushes him to untie the knot and stretch the scroll until he can stare at its entirety. It’s got some messy writing smudged by time and half-erased due to the friction of the scroll while being rolled up and he sighs at the image in front of him.

That until one character catches his attention. It’s his name or something that looks like it— it’s old and washed up and the ink has long started to fade; the strokes of the brush are also messy in the quick way of those who practice shodou as a hobby. It feels foreign to his eyes that, albeit being used to reading that sort of calligraphy, aren’t really used to reading something so _old_.

Atsumu scans the scroll in front of him. There’re more drawings than written words and he’s thankful for that and for being able to read and understand some of the old kanji smudged on the paper.

The art isn’t really aesthetically pleasing to him; he’s never been a fan of the Japanese art of past eras, especially the one about the life inside of the castles in the old times of the country. This one looks a lot like them, probably because the author tried to copy it in their own work. Most of the images depict the figure of a demon with fox ears and nine tails; he wears a dark kimono with golden embroidery, a golden haori, and he’s always carrying a black and golden—

 _Gunsen_.

His eyes lift from the scroll in front of him, merely catching a glimpse of a paragraph written in the same stylized calligraphy of before: this one also has his name in it.

« _Atsumu-san died today. I found the god of life kneeled besides him, crying, apologizing to me because he couldn’t do anything to save him. I’ve always been jealous of them and the fact that Atsumu-san could never love me as he loved them… but I understand. The god of life loved Atsumu-san in a way I could never accomplish_ ».

His breath hitches in his throat. The demon depicted in the images has blond hair, nine golden tails, and always carries a black and golden gunsen. He wears the same kimono Atsumu found carefully folded in one of the rosewood boxes, and he isn’t so sure about checking it out again; he doesn’t want to scan the hem to see if he can find any evidence of the kitsune’s death.

 _Takamagahara turned him into a human and then killed him. I was punished for loving someone I shouldn’t have loved_.

Shouyou’s words echo in his head, playing in an endless loop that seems to bounce against the inside of his skull. It mixes with the residual images he’s had his whole life, with the idea of having been living the longest déjà vu to ever exist, with the memory of how easy it was to fall in love with Shouyou albeit having resented them in the beginning. It explains the reasons as to why he’s always loved their scent, why the mere fact of them smiling seems to ease the constant anguish he’s never known how to explain.

It explains why he’s always felt like there was something missing.

Atsumu rolls up the scroll with as much care as he can muster, tying the worn out rope around it with the utmost dedication. It feels soft between his fingers as he adjusts the knot around the old paper. When he returns it to its place it seems to lift a huge weight off of his shoulders.

He finishes dusting the room and leaves as silently as he got there, closing the door softly behind his back. He’s tempted to go back to Shouyou’s room and wait for them to wake up so he can talk to them about his discovery, so he can ask them the name of the kitsune just to confirm something he already knows.

It feels _crazy_ to think that the origin of the Miya resides in a demon. The old family relics are nothing but physical memories of the generations that came before his and his parents’; it gives some sort of sense to the meaning of their surname and the fact that his family was the one to build the shrine and the temple to the god of life. If this kitsune loved Shouyou to the point of building the shrine, it’s only logical for Atsumu to love them as much as he did.

He seems to be his reincarnation after all. The coincidence of the name, the physical appearance, the memories… everything seems to be proof of the bond they share. It’s weird to think he has such old memories, all of them related to a time when his current existence wasn’t even in the plans of the universe and belonging to a being that wasn’t even human to begin with.

It’s way past midnight when he’s back in his room, sliding under the covers of his futon to get some sleep. He knows he won’t be able to close his eyes for more than five minutes after the third time he turns on his bed; he feels restless. Uneasy. There’re a lot of things he wants to talk about with Shouyou, a lot of questions he _needs_ to be answered, but he knows he can’t get what he wants now.

He falls asleep after the clock hits three in the morning and he dreams of he and Shouyou under the yorishiro, their face pressed to his neck, a gasp muffling against the hollow under his chin.

The morning after _sucks_. The constant dreams kept him from getting a good night’s rest and there’re dark, deep bags under his eyes when he sits down at the dinner table for his breakfast. When Shouyou slides into the room, smiling broadly —and too brightly for Atsumu’s almost hangover-like headache—, he feels a pang of slight annoyance at himself: his heart seems to drop directly to the pit of his stomach and he experiences a sudden wave of vertigo.

“Good morning, Atsumu-san, Osamu-san!”

Atsumu grunts. Osamu and Shouyou look at him curiously, two pairs of eyes scanning him from head to toe as if trying to guess what happened to him. They exchange puzzled looks but don’t question his sour mood so early in the morning and when Osamu proceeds to serve him his breakfast, he just leaves out a silent “thank you” that makes Shouyou giggle underneath their breath.

By the end of their meal, Atsumu has decided he’s skipping school. He didn’t rest during the night and there’s a pressing matter to be discussed with the very cheery god of life sitting at his right on the dinner table. They sip happily at their third cup of tea, balancing their feet back and forth as a child would do, and Atsumu has the sudden and burning need of burying his face in between the wild, orange locks that look like a halo of fire around their head.

Osamu leaves for his classes and he’s left alone with Shouyou, who’s already done with their tea but hasn’t moved from their chair. They steal sneaky glimpses from the corner of their eyes, almost on edge, as if waiting for Atsumu to snap suddenly.

“Are you okay?” they finally ask. Their voice sounds careful. “You look like you didn’t sleep a bit.”

“Rough night,” he answers, massaging his temples to keep the growing headache at bay.

“Drink some tea,” they suggest. It’s a piece of serious advice and Atsumu has to contain a chuckle. “What? Tea is good for you.”

“Shou,” Atsumu begins. “I’ve got somethin’ to show ya.”

That seems to pique their interest, amber eyes turning completely towards him with curiosity glimmering softly in the almost golden ring around their pupils. Their eyebrows rise slowly, sinking soft wrinkles filled with interest in the alabaster of their forehead.

“Oh?”

“Come with me,” Atsumu instructs.

Shouyou pushes against the edge of the table to be able to drag the legs of their chair against the wooden floor, standing up once they’ve left their empty cup of tea in the middle of the surface. Atsumu follows suit, starting to lead the way towards the room where they keep the Miya family relics; Shouyou doesn’t speak, doesn’t question him, and doesn’t stop to peek around this part of the temple they’ve never been to before. They just follow Atsumu's directions until they reach one of the last doors of the longest halfway in the building.

When Atsumu opens it, he’s once again overwhelmed by the dry smell of dust and old things. He’s sure it doesn’t matter how many times he dusts the room it’ll always smell like it. The fragrance of antique paper, the leather of the books covers, the wood that’s older than his grandparents and the fabric that hasn’t been worn in ages seem to swirl around the room, bringing with it the memories of a time where he wasn’t even alive. Not in this current body that is.

“Gwaah!” Shouyou sighs, delighted. “So many books!”

“They’re like, super old, too,” Atsumu chuckles, crossing the threshold and making a beeline straight to where he knows the gunsen is kept. It’s a long black gold-encrusted bamboo box that feels light in between his hands despite the entire history it carries in between the paper folds. His fingers tremble as he puts it out for Shouyou to receive it. “Here. Open it.”

There’s a flame of uncontainable curiosity burning in those amber eyes and Atsumu almost regrets handing them the box— their fingers move quickly while they work the lock open, pushing the lid upwards over the small hinges that crack slightly under the motion.

Their eyes fix on the gunsen, carefully placed on the soft, purple silky pillow. Colour drains from their face and Atsumu feels a pang of guilt in his stomach, a lump forming in his throat at the sight of Shouyou’s trembling fingers suspended a few centimetres away from the pearly wood of the gunsen.

“What—” they begin, swallowing loudly. “Where’d you get this, Atsumu-san?”

Atsumu clears his throat.

“Family relic.”

Shouyou’s eyes are filled with pain when they raise them from the box in between their hands, their fingers tensing around the wood. Atsumu blinks, trying to ignore the pearly tears that gather in the exterior angle of their eyelids, their lips pressing into a thin, pale line.

“That box right there,” he says, pointing at a red rosewood box. “His kimono’s in there.”

“His… kimono?” Shouyou repeats. Their voice is thick with non-spilled tears.

“The kitsune’s. The…” he begins, clearing his throat. “The other Atsumu.”

Shouyou is about to drop the box and Atsumu reaches out to stop it from hitting the floor. Their fingers tighten around it, hugging it against their chest while a strangled sob leaves their mouth. It’s a pained sound, something that breaks Atsumu’s heart into pieces so small he doubts he can ever pick them back up again. He hates himself for having shown the gunsen to Shouyou, for having brought back memories they surely want to forget—

“You silly fox,” they say in between one sob and the other. Atsumu’s stare fixes on their face, and he finds the tears welling up in their eyes are finally being spilled. Shouyou cries silently, almost privately, their fingers caressing the bamboo box in between their arms absentmindedly but still so lovingly that he feels his throat constricting at the sight. “How long have you known?”

“I found out last night,” he answers, taking one hesitant step forward. Shouyou seems to wait for something, something Atsumu can’t quite put his finger on. Another step forward and he’s dancing on the edge of their personal space, almost drawn with ink on the tatami under their feet. “I found something his wife wrote from the day he died.”

“You know…” they begin, swallowing around the tears. They smile softly and albeit they’re crying, there’s genuine happiness in the gesture. “I thought I’d never see him again. And then I came back to earth, and there you were… and you looked like him. So _much_ like him I almost cried.”

“Shou…”

“I know you’re not him,” they continue as if Atsumu hadn’t tried to talk. He didn’t know what to say and the need is still choking him. He takes another hesitant step forward and he’s in Shouyou’s personal space; they have to crane their neck to look at him in the face. “I know you’re two completely different persons but… you look at me in the same way he used to and it’s so hard not to love you like I loved him that I don’t know what to do.”

“I know ‘m not him,” he whispers. His voice seems to snap Shouyou out of a haze and as they blink in utter surprise, as if they weren’t expecting Atsumu to speak, he finally gathers the courage to reach out and frame their face in between his hands, sliding his thumbs over the high of their cheekbones. Their tears dampen his skin, making the caress sloppy and clumsy, but he doesn’t care. “But it feels like I’ve loved ya before even bein’ born, Shou. ‘M not _him_ but there’s still so much of him in me that I can’t picture myself without lovin’ ya.”

Shouyou sobs softly, their smile stretching a bit more. He wants to kiss the corner of their mouth and he gives in to the temptation, leaning in to press his lips against the small dimple on the left corner of theirs. They giggle softly under the pressure, craning their neck to turn that timid gesture into a full-blown kiss that leaves them gasping against each other, their mouths moving in sync as Atsumu’s arms wrap around their waist.

“My silly fox,” they whisper against his mouth. “You’ve no idea of how much I’ve missed you.”

Atsumu agrees with a soft groan. The feeling of yearning and longing doesn’t disappear as they kiss but he feels like his endless déjà vu has finally ended. As he takes the box in between his fingers to leave it aside, pushing Shouyou backwards until their back is against the wall, it feels like he’s found a long lost piece of himself that comes to finally explain _why_ his memories were so overwhelming sometimes. The calling of his blood singing in his veins as Shouyou’s fingers run through his hair, pulling him closer to them, the utter necessity of taking in and giving in, _everything_ seems to have been building up until this point in time: the reunion of two hears that have waited for centuries to press against each other again.

“’Tsumu,” they sigh as Atsumu’s lips slide down the pale column of their neck. “’Tsumu, I need to tell you— _ah_ … I need to tell you something…”

“Does it have to be now?” he grumbles, biting softly the vein underneath his lips.

“Y-Yes,” they stutter, swallowing. Atsumu smiles when he feels their Adam’s apple bob against the corner of his mouth. “T-This is the last time you’ll… _fuck,_ ‘Tsumu, let me _speak_.”

Atsumu chuckles before putting some distance in between them, his eyes taking in the sight of a flushed Shouyou pinned against the wall. They look exactly the same as they do on his memories and the satisfaction that clenches in his chest makes his heart skip a beat.

“T-This is the last time you’ll see me like this,” Shouyou says.

Atsumu’s heart drops to his knees.

“ _What_.”

There’s a bright smile combining with the beautiful blush on their cheeks and Atsumu feels confused.

“I’m done being the god of life,” they say, simply and straightforwardly. Their fingers reach out, their palms pressing against each side of Atsumu’s face and he doesn’t think before giving in to the temptation of chasing the warmth coming from their skin. “My silly, silly fox… I’d give up forever to touch you like this for the rest of my existence. I don’t want immortality if that means I can’t have you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” Shouyou begins, pressing a tender kiss to the corner of his mouth. “See you soon.”

* * *

 _Air salonpas_.

Atsumu takes in a deep breath through his nose, letting it go a few seconds later after having filled his lungs with one of his favourite smells in the world. He can hear the squeaking of volleyball shoes against the linoleum of the courts, the smashing of a well-spiked ball hitting against the floor. He smiles softly at the sound of it; whoever tossed that must feel like their entire life just found meaning.

He makes a beeline towards the veranda, folding his arms over the edge to look at the court directly underneath his position. There’s a game going on already and his eyes catch a glimpse of a very well-known face even from that distance.

 _Ah… it’s Tobio-kun_.

It’d be hard to forget Tobio even if he’d tried: talented, sharp, and extremely innocent. He remembers having pestered him about being a Goody-Two-Shoes just for the sake of it and then having felt guilty when he straight up asked what he meant with that. His intention hadn’t been making him feel upset or uncomfortable and he recognizes he can sometimes be a bit of a prick —albeit Osamu would like to differ, thank you very much. He _is_ a prick in all senses of the word— but to express what he really thought of him: Tobio is a good kid and he plays like one.

However, when he sees him tossing the ball and finds the reason as to why he wasn’t surprised at Hoshiumi’s jump height, his breath hitches in his throat. Seeing him now, setting the ball for _that monster,_ he understands why he saw Hoshiumi’s jump as _potential_.

“His expression’s totally changed from the trainin’ camp,” he draws on, almost pleased at the sight. “ _Scary_.”

His eyes drift to the spiker then, the small number ten dressed in black. His hair is a wild orange that makes him look like there’s a halo of fire surrounding his head and momentarily, he looks like a crow ready to gouge his opponents’ eyes out. Not only Tobio is scary… this tiny number ten is, too.

Amber irises look at him through the corner of Karasuno’s number ten’s eyes and Atsumu feels his heart clench with a feeling he doesn’t recognize but seems familiar all the same.

“Not to mention…” he keeps on, swallowing the thick saliva that gathers in the back of his throat. He feels hunger building up inside of him, licking at his insides like a tidal wave trying to drown him in a sense of desire he doesn’t remember having felt before, “who the hell is he?”

_And I'd give up forever to touch you_

_'Cause I know that you feel me somehow_

_You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be_

_And I don't want to go home right now_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tatoushi or tatougami (畳紙— たとう. し/たとう. がみ): folding paper-case; kimono wrapping paper. Paper folded and tucked inside the front of one's kimono (esp. for use at the tea ceremony).
> 
> Shodou (書道 — しょ.どう): calligraphy.
> 
> Tatami (畳 —たたみ): tatami mat; Japanese straw floor coverings.

**Author's Note:**

> Gunsen (軍扇 —ぐん.せん): war fan. Commander’s war fan.
> 
> Yorishiro (依代 —より.しろ): object representative of a divine spirit; object to which a spirit is drawn or summoned; object or animal occupied by a kami. Shinto terminology.
> 
> Shimenawa (しめ縄 — しめ.なわ): “enclosing rope”. Rope used to cordon off consecrated areas or as a talisman against evil. Shinto terminology.
> 
> Shide (四手 — し.で): zigzag-shaped paper streamer often used to adorn Shinto-related objects. Shinto terminology.
> 
> Takamagahara (高天原 — たか.まが.はら): the heavens. In Shinto, Takama-ga-hara (or Takama no Hara) is the dwelling place of the kami. It is believed to be connected to the Earth by the bridge Ama-no uki-hashi (the "Floating Bridge of Heaven"). In Shinto, ame (heaven) is a lofty, sacred world, the home of the amatsukami. Some scholars have attempted to explain the myth of descent of the gods from the Takama-ga-hara as an allegory of the migration of peoples.


End file.
